Scale Without “Selling Out”: How to Keep Core Values at the Heart of Your Marketing

Welcome to Digital Discovery Daily Tip #3!

This is our newsletter designed to help you ​unlock new growth—and new ways of thinking—so you can strengthen your career and your business.

Let’s discuss what it means to Scale Without “Selling Out” and how to keep core values at the heart of your marketing.

So how can you help your company “Scale without Selling Out?”

And by selling out, I don’t mean selling to a Private Equity firm. I mean, abandoning your long-term vision and values for short-term gain.

Well, I’ve learned through my own company that the trick is to make it your priority to daily communicate three things in your marketing and sales:

1. Your company’s values, 
2. Your unique approach, and 
3. Your commitment to people.

These are your core messages.

Incorporate them regularly to yourself, your team, and your customers to remind everyone of who you are.

Here’s the backstory…

When I started Structure, I set out to prove that business isn’t just business; it’s personal. 

I wanted to create something challenging, if not impossible, to find in our space: long-term, highly valuable relationships.

If I was the hammer and that phrase, “business is personal,” was the nail, I pounded it in during all my conversations, on our website, and in my demeanor.

And it worked.

Immediately, I attracted highly relational clients in various industries who wanted to work with a digital growth expert who cared about the same things they cared about. 

A partner who was as invested in their values as they were in ours. 

These clients felt a personal touch and could trust me to support their vision and values. 

Structure went from, ‘I need a client today’ to ‘How do I help all these people’ very quickly.

But as the business grew and we started to scale our operation, I began focusing more on the ‘what’ than the ‘why.’

We invested in efficiency over empathy, resulting in a noticeable drift towards transactional relationships—precisely the opposite of what we originally intended.

Not surprisingly, we started gaining transactional clients who wanted ‘what’ we did but didn’t care ‘why’ we did it.

We were getting good at the work we did. But it wasn’t as meaningful. And the relationships weren’t as great. Then, the business started to decline.

It became clear that we were at risk of “selling out.”

So what did we do? We refocused on why we started— that business isn’t just business; it’s personal.

I don’t think we’re alone in this experience.

Every values-based, privately-owned business gets to the same junction at some point. They have to learn how to scale without diluting the values that brought success in the first place.

I know this because we work with successful values-based companies doing 7 and 8 figures in revenue yearly who constantly struggle to scale without selling out.

So how do you scale without selling out?

Never lose sight of your core messages. They are your digital compass. Communicate your company’s values, unique approach, and commitment to people through various digital channels daily.

Don’t forget it!

See you tomorrow,

Simon Villeneuve
CEO, Structure

At ​Structure​, we believe value-based, family-owned businesses carry the power to shape the future and leave a lasting impact. This is because business isn’t just business; it’s personal.

So, we help them quickly establish lasting digital growth to support their physical expansion.

If you’re part of a mid-market family-owned business like this and care deeply about making a lasting impact, I invite you to keep following along!​

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